Dec. 14-20 - Sleepy Girl, Craft Day, and 72 Hour Kits

SUNDAY:

I spent the day making holiday treats for Shaun to take to work and for us to deliver to friends and neighbors. 

In the evening, Shaun and Maisey went to our Stake Christmas Fireside. Shaun and I switch off years going so one can stay home with the irreverent children and the other can go and enjoy the Christmas spirit! It was his turn. :)

Rocky Road and Eggnog Cookies!!! 

(Funny story about the eggnog cookies: They are from a Betty Crocker pouch. I've been soooo into eggnog this year since I'm not drinking pop. When I tried these eggnog cookies I fell in love with them! Plus, they are super easy to make. So I bought a bunch of BC pouches and made them, along with my homemade rocky road to give to families. Some of Shaun's co-workers and some of our friends asked for the recipe. I was a little embarrassed to say they were from a pouch. :) )

MONDAY:

Sometimes Mondays are just hard!!! 

(And every other day if you are 2 and your name is Miley!)

For FHE that night we went caroling with our friends. We delivered treats to some people in our ward. The kids LOVED it!!!

TUESDAY:

My friend Cher visit teaches a lady in our ward who just had a baby. She offered to watch the lady's older daughter for the morning. After realizing the lady's older daughter wouldn't have anyone to play with or much to do at Cher's house, she offered to watch Miley as well. Miley had so much fun playing dress up and tea party and I got so many errands ran! It made for a nice morning!

Shaun and I got to go to the temple to do sealings. We ate at Chipotle first, which is always delish! Love temple date nights!

WEDNESDAY:

Miley and I went visiting teaching and we delivered Miley's old crib to one of the ladies I visit. It was soooo nice to get rid of it, but at the same time, I was a little sad to be getting rid of one of our last baby items!

While I was visiting, Miley covered each of the faces on the back of my Ensign with her Frozen stickers.

Miley LOVES sharing a room with her big sis. Maisey doesn't quite appreciate it as much! Miley is always climbing up on Maisey's dresser and messing with her stuff. Nothing is safe in that room!

But she looks so cute and innocent, right

That afternoon, she played at my neighbor's house so I could be at the school. We had held a butter braid and cookie dough fundraiser and the products were being delivered that day. It was a chaotic afternoon trying to organize all of the flavors of products into bags and boxes for the students but it went really well, better than I expected!

Miley didn't get a nap in since she was at my neighbor's house. After school she totally conked out in the rocking chair.

Then I had to move her to the car to pick Maisey up from music club and she stayed asleep. That never happens, so she must have really needed a nap!! :)

THURSDAY:

We started the day off at the school. WAAPO hosted a doughnut and BINGO party for all of the kids who sold 5 butter braid or cookie dough products. 

Thanks to our awesome families, both of our kids sold 5 products and got to attend the party. Maisey even won a BINGO!

I rushed home from the party at school because Miley's friend Charlie was coming over to play for the morning. They danced around and sang Frozen in their little 2 year old voices. It was so cute!

Miley passed out again this afternoon. It's rare that she naps two days in a row. Definitely had to document it. 

FRIDAY:

The last day of school before Winter Break is a 1/2 day. The kids are split into groups and rotate around each of the classrooms doing crafts. I signed up to chaperon Gage's group. Luckily, Maisey's group of 2nd graders was on the same rotation as Gage's group so I got to hang with both of them!

I love helping at their school and getting to see how they interact with others and how well they can behave! :)

We picked Miley up from a friend's house and headed to get lunch! The kids chose Taco Bell to celebrate the first day of Winter Break! Wahoooo! No school for 2 weeks!

Each of the kids rested that afternoon. Miley decided to be super naughty and knock things down in her room. (of course she couldn't fall asleep 3 days in a row!)

While Gage actually did decide to fall asleep!

Shaun and I went to our friends' Ugly Sweater party. Shaun won 2nd place with his hideous glittery poinsettia puffy paint sweat shirt. :)

SATURDAY:

My mom and I spent the morning running my last minute Christmas errands. It was my last day to do things with out kids but before Christmas.

Of course, we had to stop and get Tacos Carona to fuel ourselves for our errands! YUM!!!

Once I got home, Shaun took off for a bit to grab a few last minute things.

While he was gone I started organizing things for our 72 hour kits. I'd been collecting things over the last 2 months and today was the day to organize it all! 

We now have 5 official 72 hour kits. I didn't want to wrap them and put them under the tree so I made up a little card and put it in a gift box for Shaun and put that under the tree! It feels good to have them done!

Dec. 7-13 - Work Christmas Party, Annie Pre-Screening, and Christmas Activities

SUNDAY:

Shaun was the star of singing time in Primary! The kids thought it was so funny that he was blind folded and had a hard time getting his bow on top of his present!

Family movie night was Home Alone. I didn't realize how many bad words/inappropriate parts are in that movie until I watched it with a 5 and 7 year old! EEEK!!!

MONDAY:

I caught my very resourceful 2 year old helping herself to a snack after I got out of the shower!

We had the missionaries for dinner and I have to report it went much better than last month! We had ham sliders, which baked the way they should and Shaun was on time coming home from work! :)

TUESDAY:

I was trying to take a picture the bottom of my jeans with my boots to send to my sister but my full length mirror was in the girls' room and Miley was sleeping. So I did the next best thing and stood on the edge of the kids' tub and took a selfie in the mirror. What you don't see in this picture is that I lost my balance, fell, and pulled the shower curtain down with me!

This picture is blurry but we spent the evening at Shaun's work Christmas party. I played black jack while he spent the night playing craps! 

Loved our night out together!

This was our dessert plate! Don't worry, we shared!

For every $500 in poker chips you turned in, you got a raffle ticket! That's right, I made $4,500 playing black jack! Too bad it wasn't real money!!

But I did win a blue tooth device, which we took back and got a $20 Best Buy gift card. Not the same as $4,500 but I'll take it!

WEDNESDAY:

I ordered my Christmas cards two weeks before Thanksgiving, hoping to have them all addressed, stamped and ready to mail by Thanksgiving so I wouldn't have to worry about them with all the rest of the Christmas chaos. Yeah, that didn't happen! But I did finish them up and get them mailed off!

I must have been feeling very productive this day because I also cleaned out my purse, and the purse that I had replaced a month ago! 2 purses worth of garbage and junk! Haha!

THURSDAY:

Miley and I ran to the mall to grab a few gifts for Shaun. Miley through an EPIC fit in one of the stores that a store employee came and asked if I needed help. Super embarrassing! Needless to say, we cut our shopping trip early and headed home for naps!!

FRIDAY:

Maisey's class went on a field trip to the Mission Mill museum. They got to dress like pioneers and sit in an old classroom and pretend like they were students. They each had their own chalkboards and the "teacher" even put one of the kids in timeout which meant they had to stick their nose through a little hole in the wall. The kids thought that was pretty funny!

The mill tour was pretty boring for the kids. It was more appropriate for middle school aged kids. And it didn't help that we had an 80+ year old with a cane and a hearing aid as our tour guide. But Maisey and I still had fun spending the morning together!

The big kids had their first sleep over in Gage's new room! 

SATURDAY:

I got four passes to a pre-screening of Annie, so Maisey and I invited our friends to join us!

Waiting for the movie to start!

I hadn't seen any previews of the movie, so I was shocked when I saw the cast for the first time! ;)

The girls really enjoyed the movie, and so did the mom's! It was super cute and one that we will redbox when it comes out!

Later that evening we went as a family to look at Christmas lights. I really liked this JOY sign with the nativity carved in the middle.

The kids loved the lights and the hot chocolate that we got!

I printed these scavenger hunt sheets for the big kids to find while we were driving around! By the end they had found them all!

Once we got home and got the kids in bed I pulled out my primary lesson to start preparing. Once I read the title I asked Shaun if he would teach it for me. I would have a hard time teaching that one!

Nov. 30-Dec. 6 - Christmas Activities and Swim Night

SUNDAY:

We brought our tree inside and got out all of the Christmas decorations. The kids were really excited to help, which pretty much means it was pure chaos!

Miley loved the Christmas blankies! We eventually split them up so each kid got to sleep with one for the season!

Embarrassing, non Christmas story! Sunday night was the deadline to sign up for a kids in the kitchen cooking class that Maisey likes to take. I got on a little after 9:00 pm to sign up and it said the registration was closed even though it wasn't supposed to close until midnight. I took a picture and sent it to the city's parks and rec manager and asked if I could still register. She emailed me back the next morning and said she would open the registration back up and let me register and then she would close it back up. So I got on to register, went through the whole process, and then at the end when I pushed register, it said, I'm sorry, you have already registered for this program. You can not register for the same program multiple times! So I had to email the parks and rec manager back and say thanks for opening it up, but apparently I had already registered. I'm so sorry and I'm not usually that dumb! 

MONDAY:

I can 't remember anything noteworthy happening that day!

TUESDAY:

That evening Maisey went to the cooking class that I mentioned above and I went to a 72 hour kit class at church. The 72 hour kit class was very informative and gave me some good ideas to get started!

WEDNESDAY:

Our elf, Max, came back a few nights ago! Unfortunately, on his second night he had to go back to Santa and tell him how naughty the kids were being! Max wrote the kids a note to let them know and said he hoped they would change their behavior! It worked for about a day!

THURSDAY:

Miley has gotten pretty good at throwing these massive tantrums! I told my sister that she has been my hardest two year old and I survived Gage, so that's saying something!!!

Good thing she can also be super dang cute, because it saves her daily! 

FRIDAY:

Today was an art day! We did poinsettias with paint, sponges, fingers, and brushes! The kids really enjoyed their projects!

We also had the WAAPO sponsored family swim night! 

And then we headed straight to the church for our ward Christmas party! It was a formal party, so the kids got to debut their Christmas clothes! They were adorable!!!

The whole fam in our Christmas clothes!

SATURDAY:

My mom and I spent the morning running errands. She was a bit offended that the "retro toys" section at Target included all of the toys that she played with as a kid!

That evening, we got the kids dressed up in their Christmas clothes so we could go out and have some family fun!

We went to Red Robin for dinner and Miley hid her face from the waiter to whole time. This stranger anxiety thing is getting sooooo old!

Then we headed to a nativity display

Complete with a live nativity scene. It was neat to see my kids get excited about the real reason we celebrate the season!

Miley has been super scared of our inflatable Santa on our front porch but when we got home that night she wanted to inspect him a bit. She still didn't get close enough to touch him, but this is a big improvement for her!